VW Exec Pleads Guilty to Diesel Fraud Charges
David Wagman | August 04, 2017
Oliver Schmidt
A German Volkswagen executive pleaded guilty August 4 to conspiracy and fraud charges in Detroit in a scheme to cheat emission rules on nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles.
The Associated Press reported that Oliver Schmidt appeared before U.S. District Judge Sean Cox as part of the U.S. government’s case involving the automaker.
Schmidt, 48, is a former manager of a VW engineering office in suburban Detroit. He was arrested in January while on vacation in Miami. He faces up to five years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the U.S., wire fraud and violation of the Clean Air Act. A second count of giving false statement under the Clean Air Act carries a possible sentence of up to two years in prison.
(Read "VW Scandal: When Good Engineers Do the Wrong Thing.")
News reports say he remains jailed and is scheduled to be sentenced December 6. He also could face deportation.
Schmidt is accused of telling regulators technical problems were to blame for the difference in emissions in road and lab tests.
VW pled guilty in March to defrauding the U.S. government and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties, on top of billions more to buy back cars. Most of the VW employees charged in the scheme are in Germany and out of reach of U.S. authorities.
Some 11 million cars worldwide were equipped with the software. Meeting U.S. emissions standards was part of the company’s “clean diesel” marketing strategy.
VW reached a $15 billion civil settlement in the U.S. with environmental authorities and car owners.
One wonders if he is simply an "available" scape-goat that the EPA could get their hands upon or is he truly THE person behind the WHOLE thing (which I doubt). Sending THE person who thought up, got approval for, and directed the whole software tricking EPA tests directly into the EPA "lions den" hardly seems likely...but, who knows, maybe VW is/was THAT gullible, since the obviously THOUGHT they wouldn't get caught.
In reply to #1
'...got approval for....'
.
Whoever gave approval, however high that went (likely it went very high), should be facing the music...but almost certainly will not.
The whole idea that the knoweldge of and complicity in the fraud might be hermetically sealed off at some level below the level with responsibility for meeting the emissions standards while still making a desireable car to drive, i.e., the factor motivating the fraud, is patently absurd.
Makes me wonder what kind of stick and or carrot the higher-ups have hanging over this scapegoat.